About

BLACK EMBER MODULAR BACKPACKS

$103,668

pledged of $100,000 goal

254

backers

Five days a week we work, create and navigate the streets of the city. Two days a week we go outside and play. Our commitment to both our design principles and our wanderlust takes us all over the world. One day touring the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul and the next headed to Hanoi to work through some development challenges.

Black Ember is a small team of Industrial Designers and product developers with a collective experience of more than 60 years designing and building performance soft-goods, hard-goods, and technical equipment. As designers, creators and product-testers for some of the best known and most respected sport, performance and outdoor brands in the world, we have deep experience and expertise in the design of technical soft-goods and equipment. We most especially love bad-ass backpacks.

The Black Ember team has a passion for design, craftsmanship, street life, the outdoors, and California. BLACK EMBER products are backpacks for a reason. Our lives are active, highly mobile, and always changing. We needed one pack that can flow from the streets to the airport seamlessly, scale from minimal to maximal effortlessly, and stand up to all the abuse along the way.

Black Ember has been featured in over 50 publications. For complete links to all Black Ember features check it out here: blackember.com/pages/press

THE EXTENDED BLACK EMBER TEAM

The Black Ember team has been fortunate to attract a diverse community with a real passion for our products. We practically inhaled our Gen01 Kickstarter Backers input. That valuable input directly influenced & informed the design of our Gen02 as well as the Gen03 collection we present to you today.

BLACK EMBER packs are versatile, weatherproof and highly durable

In their most minimal form Black Ember Gen03 packs are designed to give you the right amount of space & the key features to get you through the next 24 to 48 hours of your life. We strive to deliver this within a sleek + minimal package.

Black Ember backpacks are durable, highly functional, weatherproof, packs designed to house and protect your critical gear. Each material has been carefully chosen for its particular performance characteristics and aesthetic quality. The backpacks are designed and crafted in obsessive functional and aesthetic detail. We design, develop and manufacture our own cast aluminum hardware and we also partner with Fidlock, the innovative German manufacturer of magnetic, mechanical locking hardware.

The Black Ember design process is directly informed by our teams experience with Outdoor performance design & built for everyday carry in urban environments. Our ergonomic, form fitted 3D shoulder straps support the pack’s load comfortably & each pack features an airflow back-panel to reduce heat and perspiration on your back.

MODULARITY

Black Ember packs are modular, so you can build your own your kit, Spec it just the way you want it, and even change your set-up over time. Your Black Ember pack is good to go as-is. If you need more space & want to customize your pack, add Mods (modular accessories) to get the custom build you're looking for. Mods can be attached inside and outside of Black Ember packs.

Our Gen03 Mods connect via our new ultra-light-weight, and low profile Mod-Clasp hardware, featuring Acetal & Laser-cut Hypalon components. Once installed they can not be removed by force and conform tightly to the pack surface.

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Black Ember users often tell us that one of their favorite ways to use their Mods is to keep dedicated pouches fully packed and ready to attach, such as, a camera dedicated pouch, a media pouch, or a passport travel ready pouch.

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The 30 liter TL3 pack is a top loader featuring an innovative top access with the weatherproof qualities of a roll-top backpack and the convenience of a zipper access pack. The TL3 pack also features a mag-lock buckle connected top handle integrated seamlessly into the form of the pack. Two large vertical laser-cut, bonded, and bar-tacked zipper pockets, featuring Cam-lock zipper heads, run vertically on either side of the pack. The TL3 is compatible with all Gen03 Mods.

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The 25 liter Citadel pack features a primary zipper that runs nearly the full length of the pack. The Citadel is compatible with all Gen03 Mods. The Citadel is also designed to work in tandem with the Black Ember DSLR CASE. The DSLR CASE can be attached to the top or base of the Citadel Pack.

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The 30 liter Holdall Msngr is a hybrid messenger pack featuring an innovative top zipper and a leather wrap handle integrated seamlessly into the form of the pack. The Holdall Msngr features an ergonomic shoulder strap with quick-release cast-aluminum hardware and can be set-up for either right or left handed use. Two vertical laser-cut, bonded, and bar-tacked zipper pockets, featuring Cam-lock zipper heads, run vertically on either side of the pack. The Holdall Msngr is compatible with all Gen03 Mods.

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BLACK EMBER TEAM BUILDS

The team at Black Ember put together 3 recommended builds, offered here on Kickstarter at special pricing, in limited quantities. If one of these builds does not suit your needs, thats Ok. You can specify exactly what you want in BackerKit at the close of the project.

Reinforced zipper welts on primary access zippers for more durability.

Multiple bonded and bartacked hypalon lash points in several locations on the backpacks allow you to strap most anything to your pack including: yoga mats, architectural tubes, and tripods.

Flat bases on all the packs allow the packs to stand-up on their own.

Front and rear panels of the pack feature light-weight internal structure to maintain the packs shape while packing and adding modular accessories.

Risks and challenges

This is Black Ember’s Second Kickstarter and our third product generation. Our design, development, and production processes are super tight, as is our relationship with our production partners. On this our third major collection launch we are 100% confident that we will deliver your Black Ember pack without fail.
We are nothing if not obsessed with production quality. From time to time one of our suppliers may not meet our standards during a component review. On these occasions our policy is always to disapprove substandard components. Although this situation does not happen often, this can cause delays. But, not to worry, in the unlikely chance of a vendor delay we will always push hard to resolve the issue quickly and deliver your Black Ember pack with minimal delay.